If Denis Costello can take anything away from more than a quarter century with Catholic Family Services Toronto, it’s knowing that the need for the agency has never been greater.

A society that has become so secular over the years and has pushed the needs of the faithful so far to the side that those seeking a place where faith is important need an agency like Catholic Family Services in a time of need.

“We need to have a strong social service agencies, solidly following the teaching of the Catholic Church, so that we can push back against a very aggressive secularization and have something to show that we are a forceful good in society,” said Costello, 71, who is stepping down after 26 years with CFS Toronto, the past three as executive director.

He’s seen it over the years in the various roles he has filled at CFS, from counsellor through director of Clinical Services and Programs up to executive director. People of other denominations come to the agency because they see it as a place where faith is taken seriously.

“I think there’s great wisdom in our tradition that we can share with the total community,” he said.

“When people get into trouble then you’re going to need Catholic social agencies.”

It’s one of the traits that led Costello to CFS back in 1992 when he came on board, on contract, to do marriage counselling.

“I like working in an agency where my values are aligned with the agency’s values,” he said.

Costello will be retiring at the end of the year and said the “long journey” has been a good one. He has tried to take the best practices of his predecessors — the community orientation instilled by Lucia Furgiuele and the connection with the Catholic element of the work by Gladys McMullin — and infuse them with his clinical focus. It has left CFS with an impressive team, Costello believes, well placed to carry on CFS’s almost 100 years of strengthening families, marriages and individuals.

“I’m highly impressed with their passion, their dedication to their work. I’m seeing the young social workers and they give me great hope for the future. I leave behind a terrific team of managers,” he said.

Costello also leaves satisfied that CFS has helped its clients develop “very positive outcomes,” as discovered through surveys of clients after their interactions with the agency. He won’t take all the credit though, likening the work to that of a personal trainer at the gym. They can guide a person onto the right path, but it takes the person themselves doing the work to achieve their goals.

“If somebody comes, and comes regularly, and does the work, they will often get a good result,” he said.

Costello also believes it is an honour to be entrusted with helping someone in crisis.

“It’s an enormous honour and responsibility to be invited into someone’s life,” he said. “This counselling is really, really simple. You need to be able to listen. You need to help the person arrive at the solution that is right for them.”

Sure, there are things Costello knows he could have done better, but he understands that “nobody ever lives up to the ideal that we set for ourselves.”

“At the same time, this agency has allowed me to live my Christian faith and my social ethics so fully that they overwhelm any regrets.”

As for his future, Costello will take some time to discern what comes next.

In the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to include more study on Indigenous issues in school curriculum, it appears educators across the country are taking the recommendations to heart.

In its second report card on how Canadian provinces have responded specifically to TRC Call to Action #62 — “to make age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada a mandatory education requirement” — the social justice organization Kairos has found most provinces have shown signs of progress.

Since the TRC report’s release in June 2015, Kairos has graded provinces and territories on their public commitment to and implementation of Call to Action #62, one of 94 recommendations by the commission. The latest report card released in October shows that in every jurisdiction outside of Quebec there has been significant improvement since Kairos issued its first report card in 2016. The western provinces lead the way, not surprising as they are the areas of Canada with the highest concentrations of Indigenous peoples.

For Dawn Maracle, a Mohawk woman from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario and Kairos’ Indigenous rights co-ordinator, it’s a start. She recognizes the “new vigour and drive for people to know that this is important,” but it’s only the first steps on a long journey.

“We have decades and decades of work to do,” said Maracle. “It’s only just the beginning.”

Quebec appears to have the most work to do. While the report card acknowledges the province recently revised its school curriculum to include mention of residential schools, “the province did not consult with Indigenous people in its inclusion and there is concern about bias and inaccuracies.”

Maracle admits the report is not a deep-level survey — it doesn’t analyze the curriculum or track the Indigenous people hired to help with curriculum— but she said it does show the TRC message is out there.

Toronto’s Notre Dame High School has recognized that more needs to be done in opening up the conversation surrounding truth and reconciliation and over the last year and a half has put together its own piece of “reconcili-action.” In the wake of the TRC, students created Minotatemiskatowin — A Journey to Reconciliation, a presentation that has been staged at the school and most recently performed for MPs and senators in Ottawa Nov. 26 (Minotatemiskatowin is a Cree word meaning good relations with one another). The performance details the impact of colonialism through the lens of sisterhood manifested as MMIWG (missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls). The goal is to educate and start towards reconciliation within the school.

Reshida Nezirevic is vice-principal at the all-girls’ high school in Toronto’s east end. She said each year students try to undertake an interdisciplinary project to “develop a better understanding and appreciation of where their curriculum is actually tied to other subject areas.” This allows the girls to examine “real-world problems or issues” in the classroom, she said.

“This was really our opportunity to look at how we can pull all of this together, how can we not only be teaching our students about some of the prevalent issues that have been ongoing and maybe not as often discussed in the classroom around Indigenous issues,” said Nezirevic. “But let’s also look at how we can infuse this across our curriculum so that there’s a broader appreciation, and looking for links we can make across subject areas.”

It’s an area Toronto Catholic District School Board officials had seen a growing interest in even before the TRC’s recommendations. For the past decade, Vanessa Pinto has been at the forefront in Indigenous education with the board, and has seen an enthusiasm in her colleagues.

“The efforts are there and they are being done in authentic, intentional and meaningful ways because at the end of the day, Indigenous education is not only for Indigenous students, but for all students,” said Pinto, one of two Indigenous Education Central Resource teachers with the TCDSB.

It’s not the goal to portray residential schools in a good vs. evil spotlight, said Pinto.

“It’s not to make us feel bad as Catholics (who ran many of the residential schools),” said Pinto. “It is a responsibility so that our students know that it can’t happen again and shouldn’t happen again.”

Like Maracle, Nick D’Avella knows there is still a long way to go. The TCDSB’s Superintendent of Equity, Diversity and Indigenous Education said curriculum is focusing on reconciliation and acknowledging the history of past relationships. He notes the social studies curriculum has already been “Indigenized,” and includes expectations of the history of Indigenous peoples and the history of residential schools.

“What we do going forward is really essential,” said D’Avella. “There is a momentum building. The hope really lies in the authentic engagement of teachers and leaders in the schools to sustain this.”

Pinto said Indigenous education is far from being a “fashionable” subject that will lose steam as Indigenous issues fade from the media spotlight, and credits educators for keeping momentum going.

“You can see all our staff doing really good work in incorporating Indigenous studies into the curriculum,” she said. “People are wanting to do things correctly. And we can’t ask for anything more.”

That’s all good news to Maracle. But she has seen the peaks and valleys in more than 20 years engaged in Indigenous advocacy. Still, she is confident schools are on the right path. “The TRC has brought a new vigour and drive for people to know that this is important,” said Maracle.

“The ministries of education are becoming more responsive to these important reports and recommendations and calls to action that have happened over the past 20 years, but also the will of the people.”

Her hope is “every single school in every single school board across Canada, in every province, territory and Indigenous community has Indigenous content, ideally, I like to say, in every single program.”

Nezirevic sees the girls at Notre Dame “coming to a place of understanding” through such efforts.

“With greater and better understanding and awareness of the events that have occurred, it means the girls are more informed about their past. And that’s the kinds of information you want to be using in their future decision-making. It’s also about the teaching they pass on to future generations,” she said.

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The scandal that has erupted at Toronto’s St. Michael’s College School involving bullying and assault allegations has prompted suggestions that a “toxic masculinity” at the all-boys’ school played a role in incidents that have resulted in eight expulsions, six students facing serious charges and one student suspended. It’s also led to some calls to abolish single-sex schools.

The move to end all-boy and all-girl education is not widespread, but the suggestion has been around for a while and received added fuel in the wake of the crisis at St. Michael’s.

These are whispers Nancy Crawford has heard over her many years as a trustee with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, which isn’t affliated with St. Michael’s but operates four all-boys schools and six schools for girls only. Single-sex schools are regarded as “specialty programming” and somewhat elitist, but no matter how loud the whispers, no government has acted to curtail them.

“I would caution against” putting an end to single-gender schools, Crawford said.

The alleged actions at St. Michael’s that have brought disrepute to the prestigious all-boys’ school are unfortunate, said Crawford. She admits some may call her naive, but she doesn’t see a link between the incidents at St. Michael’s and the all-boys’ environment. What Crawford does see is improved chances at success through the single-gender option.

“I think it meets a number of needs that can’t be met at a co-ed school,” she said. “There’s a level of comfort being with your peers and there’s a level of academic benefits.”

On it’s website, St. Michael’s explains its rationale for maintaining an all-boys’ environment for the past 166 years. It says single-sex education offers unique educational opportunities and allows boys to develop strong fraternal relationships and a positive sense of self worth. The curriculum, it says, is taught in a manner that has shown to be engaging for young men.

But is single-gender education the way to go? Studies offer conflicting answers.

Research by the Ontario government’s Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat in 2007 had inconclusive results. Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a recent opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, cited 2014 research that found “no significant differences in academic achievement between students in single-sex and co-educational schools.”

Proponents of single-sex schools though, counter these conclusions with studies of their own. The National Association for Single-sex Public Education in the United States cites several studies from around the world showing single-sex schools produce students with better grades. Among these were a Cambridge University study (2003) that found “using single-sex groups was a significant factor in establishing a school culture that would raise educational achievement.”

Anthony Yeow doesn’t need studies to reinforce his belief in the benefits of all-boy schools. He sees it every day in the classrooms at Toronto’s Northmount School. A number of Northmount’s newer students transferred from co-ed schools, “and when they entered an all-boys’ environment they’re really starting to strive,” said the JK-to-Grade 8 school’s director of character education.

Boys tend to be less advanced in motor skills development at an earlier age, said Yeow. But by shaping the curriculum to be more-male-focused, he finds the boys enjoy school more and that leads them to be “a lot more engaged.”

Yeow cannot emphasize enough the role of mentors, overwhelmingly male, in helping Northmount students develop. That makes a difference in developing the “manly” side of the boy.

“They understand that they are called to be a man and not to be machoistic in the wrong way.”

A strong moral compass is something staff aim to instil in the girls at Holy Name of Mary College School in Mississauga, Ont., as well. Head of School Marilena Tesoro wants the girls at the only independent Catholic girls’ school in Ontario to be “beacons of light” for girls in the future.

These girls do “remarkably well academically,” said Tesoro, “but we also want to build leadership, build that moral compass and ignite that spiritual core within them.”

It’s much easier in an all-girls’ environment. Girls naturally perceive themselves to be less powerful and tend to hold back. But at schools like Holy Name, they reject the gender stereotype.

“Girls get more motivation, they believe in themselves. They are more resilient to disrupt the gender bias because they see other girls doing it and they see others encouraging them,” said Tesoro.

]]>mickeyc@catholicregister.org (Mickey Conlon)CanadaFri, 30 Nov 2018 16:08:46 -0500Hamilton diocese looks to make Church the focus of fulfilling the needs of family lifehttps://www.catholicregister.org/item/28476-hamilton-diocese-looks-to-make-church-the-focus-of-fulfilling-needs-family-life
https://www.catholicregister.org/item/28476-hamilton-diocese-looks-to-make-church-the-focus-of-fulfilling-needs-family-life

There was a time, not too far in the past, when people would look to their Church for the various supports they needed in their family life.

Somewhere along the way, however, things changed drastically. Culturally, the influence of faith declined and secularism took hold, and people turned their backs on the Church and looked to the state to take care of such issues.

Teresa Hartnett would like to see things go back to how they once were, when people would naturally turn to their Church in times of family crisis. She has worked in family ministry with the Diocese of Hamilton for 15 years and is seeing a shift where people are beginning to call “for everything again.” People with cancer, mental health issues and more have slowly started turning back to the Church for a faith perspective on their problems.

“That’s what we used to be, people turned to the Church for everything,” said Hartnett, director of the Family Ministry Office in the Hamilton diocese.

The Family Ministry Office has reached out to Catholics in the diocese to help develop a plan to meet the needs of families. In late October, a forum invited people to share their views and advice on helping parents and children thrive and grow in their faith, connect to their church community and invigorate parish life.

It’s a continuation of data-collection efforts Hartnett has been using to find out what people want from their Church when it comes to family ministry.

Hartnett wants to find ways to convince people that “faith is important and vital to their children’s health, physically, mentally and emotionally. I’ve got to get them to believe it.”

It starts with asking the people what their wishes are.

“We need to find out from the people what it is they want and need and expect,” said Hartnett.

Hartnett is leaning heavily on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortationAmoris Laetitia(The Joy of Love) and its reminder that families today need more support than ever as they raise the next generation of the Church.

There will be challenges in trying to develop a plan, said Hartnett, not least of which will be money. It is tight everywhere — for families and for the parishes.

“Not every parish will be able to do everything, but I believe if we have a list of this is what people would like support in and here’s the programs available… could we reach out? If we want people to come back to the Church we need to touch them where they need us.”

Data she has collected so far shows “people really want their parishes to be alive.” The challenge is finding ways to make that happen. The Eucharist and getting a good message delivered in the homily are among the priorities people have identified, she said. But she said one thing that struck her is people say they are missing a sense of community and an attachment to the Church.

“They wanted a sense of belonging, that someone knew I was there and knew if I was missing,” said Hartnett.

Looking ahead, she would like to see someone dedicated to family ministry at each parish, whether it is a paid layperson or a volunteer. “So that families will be able to shift in their looking at where do I get support, I can look to the Church,” she said. “And once they’re getting support from the Church, that transition to being an active member of the Church becomes easier. That’s my hope, more families in the pews.”

Coming up against the secular culture will be a hard obstacle to overcome. She recalls the words of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from the World Meeting of Families she attended in Dublin, Ireland, in September. Tagle, the archbishop of Manila, Philippines, spoke of the “throwaway culture” that has arisen alongside secularism, where people want to do and be what they want.

The culture is so strong and so engrained that it won’t be “something from the pulpit” that brings that cultural change.

“It’s tough because the culture is so pervasive,” Hartnett said.

But Hartnett thinks she is already seeing change, particularly among younger generations.

“You see little things… our younger generation coming up now into their 20s are already a simpler generation,” she said.

Pro-life women are portrayed as being on the outside looking in when it comes to today’s feminist movement, but they actually are truer to feminism’s roots.

That’s the message of Andrea Mrozek, program director with Cardus Family and a long-time observer and commentator on family and women’s issues.

“Modern feminism and what most of us experience today is pretty hostile to pro-life,” said Mrozek,who is also founder of the pro-life website ProWomanProLife.org. “But the roots of feminism are not. So in drawing on those roots, pro-life women are in a strong feminist position.”

The original feminist movement, the abolitionists seeking an end to slavery and then the suffragettes of the late 19th and early 20th century, were actually more pro-women and would have more in common with pro-lifers today, argues Mrozek, who spoke on the issue at the annual deVeber Institute Lecture Nov. 8 in Toronto.

“Really, the onus isn’t on pro-lifers to reconcile that,” she told The Catholic Register. “The onus is on the second-wave feminists to reconcile with their own roots.”

The evolution of thought came in the 1960s and the “Sexual Revolution” with its strong emphasis on “so-called reproductive rights.” That launched this second wave and took the women’s movement on a hard turn away from its roots, said Mrozek. It led to a splintering of the movement, with a “lack of a common cause because it has left behind its classical liberal roots that would allow for freedom to prevail.”

Feminism now is under such a broad umbrella that it means very different things to different people.

“It’s a very messy world out there in feminism today and I’m not 100-per-cent sure that they know what they stand for and that makes it difficult for others to join,” she said.

Today’s mainstream feminism has taken such a hard turn to the left that it is coming out of an almost Marxist tradition, and that’s where it has alienated a large portion of those who would normally call themselves feminists, she said.

“I don’t believe that Marxist thinking works.”

There are common causes to be found around women’s issues, particularly in the developing world, said Mrozek. But it’s hard to “make common cause when, first of all, feminism today includes abortion in their roster of issues.”

It’s “wishful thinking” to believe more women will embrace the feminism of the pro-life cause, but Mrozek said a strong case can be made for pro-life women being more pro-women than their pro-choice comrades, “whether you use the term feminist or not.”

There are groups out there that broaden their cause beyond the classic pro-life subjects of abortion and euthanasia. She cites Rehumanize International. It has a mandate of ensuring that each life is respected, valued and protected by opposing all forms of aggressive violence, including human trafficking, torture, unjust war, capital punishment and police brutality.

This broadening of the ideological positioning of these types of pro-life groups, Mrozek said, is indicative a movement in a new direction.

“If you want to draw in people of different persuasions, you have to take in the ‘consistent life ethic,’” she said.

Louis Riel and his legacy in our nation’s history are well-documented, if not a bit fragmented.

The narrative surrounding Riel, who was hanged for treason on Nov. 16, 1885 in Regina, Sask., has evolved over the years.

To some, he was the treasonous outlaw who led not one but two uprisings against the Canadian government of John A. Macdonald.

To others, the devout Catholic and former seminarian who would later break from the Church while in exile in Montana — from where he was elected three times to the House of Commons, though his exile prevented him from taking his seat — was the murderous megalomaniac “prophet” with delusions of grandeur who lost his way as his mental and moral capacities declined.

Yet to Canada’s Métis people, he remains an important, and heroic, figure. It may not have always been that way, but a new — or perhaps renewed — pride in Métis heritage and Riel is rising among the people who descended from the interracial mixing of the first European settlers and those who were already here.

The Regina Riel Métis Council in the Saskatchewan capital has played a large role in commemorating the memory of the man known as one of the founders of Manitoba who became the political leader fighting for the rights of the Metis people on the Canadian Prairies in the late 1800s. Council #34 hosts an annual vigil on Nov. 16 to mark the life and death of Riel at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Depot Division, where Riel was jailed in his final days before being sent to the gallows.

“It came out of necessity,” said Doug Jarvis of the Regina Riel Métis Council in explaining why the vigil has been an annual event for the last 11 years.

Riel is a folk hero to Francophones, Catholic nationalists, the Indigenous rights movement, but most importantly to the Métis people. It wasn’t always that way. Jarvis said many Métis did not flaunt their ethnicity.

“The people that are Métis here that could hide, hid. A lot of pale Métis did not want to be associated just because of the negative connotation with being (Indigenous),” said Jarvis.

“I think what’s happened is we’ve decided that’s enough of that. We’re going to celebrate this man who fought not only for our rights but for the rights of settlers who came out here, too.”

The vigil begins with a gathering at Optimist Park about a kilometre from Depot Division, the RCMP’s training grounds for all its officers. Participants are encouraged to wear their finest Metis clothing, including capotes and sashes, and then proceed to the site where Riel was hanged, near the RCMP chapel.

From there, prayers are said and the vigil continues in the chapel where discussion focuses on what Riel meant to the Métis people. Afterwards, the celebrations continue at the Indigenous Christian Fellowship building where traditional Métis foods are shared.

The RCMP and the council have forged a close relationship through the vigil over the past few years. Capt. Jean Morisset, chaplaincy co-ordinator at Depot Division, said it is in a spirit of reconciliation that the force welcomes the Métis each year, despite some lingering tensions.

“To say that there is not some remaining heartache, to say it doesn’t exist, would be foolish on our part,” said Morisset, a Pentecostal minister. “Of course there have been some hard feelings that have been ongoing since 1885. That said… I see taking place a healing and reconciliation.”

The RCMP, Morisset said, has actually taken reconciliation to heart even before the federal government’s promotion of healing since the Truth and Reconciliation report’s findings.

“I believe the message of Louis Riel himself was not of separation, not of destruction, but to come together as a nation and provide a better tomorrow,” said Morisset.

Jarvis said the RCMP have been wonderful partners, yet there remains much work to do in reconciling with Canadians as a whole.

“Structurally, there still is tension,” said Jarvis. “Not as bad as it would have been 25 years ago, but there is still tension. That’s just the legacy of colonization.”

What Jarvis would like to remember most about Riel is that he was just a regular human being, warts and all, “like you and me.”

A few years back Jarvis was in the archives in St. Boniface, Man., and came upon a scholar researching Riel. He was going through letters Riel had written, including one from Nov. 15, 1885, the day before he died.

“You read the letters and you realize here’s a man who is writing home to his mom and his wife and the people in his life back home who he fought for and the words in it were just so humbling because he was just a guy like you and me. He tried to effect change in a positive way. It didn’t work out but it still can. I think that’s the message people need.”

]]>mickeyc@catholicregister.org (Mickey Conlon)CanadaThu, 15 Nov 2018 12:18:44 -0500King’s University College doubles down on its futurehttps://www.catholicregister.org/features/item/28417-king-s-university-college-doubles-down-on-its-future
https://www.catholicregister.org/features/item/28417-king-s-university-college-doubles-down-on-its-future

King’s University College has taken a big step into its own future by doubling the size of its campus footprint.

The Catholic college affiliated with Western University in London, Ont., has bought an 18.152-acre plot of land from the Diocese of London. The transfer was marked by an Oct. 29 celebration on the property which fronts St. Peter’s Seminary adjacent to the college.

“That land is our land and it has opened up the future for us and has provided us with all kinds of options down the road,” said Dr. Sauro Camiletti, King’s Interim Principal and Academic Dean.

The purchase price has not been released, but Camiletti said the funds will come from the new Imagine the Future fundraising campaign launched by the King’s University College Foundation. The goal is to raise $15 million to offset the purchase price, fund scholarships and other student supports.

The campaign is off to a fine start as the student council has already committed $5 million and the Alumni Association has pledged another $300,000.

The diocese will also transfer another 15 acres of land to neighbouring St. Peter’s Seminary, including the seminary building. In a statement, Bishop Ronald Fabbro said the transfer will continue the vision of his predecessors, Bishop Michael Fallon in particular, in their aim to create “a hub of Catholic learning and formation in Southwestern Ontario.”

Camiletti said the land purchase protects King’s and ensures its viability in the future.

“If you don’t acquire the land then another party will and that party may be a commercial agent or a residential development, all kinds of things that could threaten the mission of the college and severely restrict our ability to expand,” he said.

King’s is home to about 3,600 students with more than 400 full and part-time faculty. There are no concrete plans to expand the campus just yet, said Camiletti, but a university is a place that is always evolving and developing new programs. The new land gives the school some breathing room for the future, as well as continuing to meet the needs of today’s students.

“What new land does for us is it gives us the opportunity to design space that serves the kinds of functions that are more current and the ones we’ll need in the future,” he said.

Camiletti expects the new property will eventually house new academic buildings, space for student activities and continued greenspace, as well as being a welcoming place for its neighbours.

“That whole process of developing that land will take a great deal of time,” he said.

King’s was founded in 1954 under the name Christ the King College and was owned and governed by the diocese until 1972 when the college took responsibility for the overall operation and guidance. It was incorporated as a separate entity in 2013.

When Pope Francis initiated the World Day of the Poor to be marked on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time — Nov. 18 this year — it was easy for people to see this targeted at the familiar pictures that are all too real of Third World poverty.

The reality, however, is that “there’s a lot of people who are poor everywhere,” said Richard Pommainville.

“A lot of people think of the poor, it’s Haiti, it’s South America, it’s Africa. No, it’s around us,” said Pommainville, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s national council.

The statistics are clear on that. The federal government’s “Towards a Poverty Reduction Strategy Discussion Paper” notes that 1.9 million Canadian families struggle to make ends meet. And it goes beyond just having a low income. It’s food insecurity, social exclusion, inadequate housing, a lack of access to transportation and services and more. Vincentian volunteers assisted 350,000 people nationwide last year, about one per cent of the Canadian population.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is using the World Day of the Poor to launch its new campaign to raise funds and collect non-perishable food items in parishes across the country, as they have always done, but also to raise awareness of the Society and its efforts to stem the effects of poverty in Canada. It’s unique in that way as the Society has never run a national campaign with such a focused topic, said Pommainville, while at the same time getting the goods to fill the Christmas hampers for families in need, which they have been doing for more than 170 years.

The Society, it might seem, would be fairly visible out in the community. Volunteers last year donated more than 1.6 million hours of time in making 250,000 home visits, which is the anchor point of its mission. It’s not the case though, as “Vincentians are humble in nature so they don’t want to project all the work they do,” said Pommainville.

The national council has developed a campaign guide to help its volunteers increase awareness in parishes and beyond. An advertising campaign has been launched and an advertisement will run on the Daily TV Mass broadcast on Nov. 18, a Mass the Society is also sponsoring. Posters have been created for the Society’s stores across Canada and parish bulletins will carry campaign ads. The campaign will also give guidance on what local councils can do within their own parishes.

Pommainville said we have to start looking for the root causes of poverty. As he heard at a conference earlier this year, “We’re putting plaster on the problem.”

He’s encouraged that the federal government has announced its poverty-reduction strategy, but he is concerned that it doesn’t begin until 2020. With a federal election next year, there is a danger of a change in government that could put the strategy in jeopardy.

Pommainville has been in talks with Canada’s bishops and is pleased that they have thrown their support behind the campaign.

“We’ve got to continue raising the visibility because otherwise the middle class is going to be pulled down further,” said Pommainville.

For those who doubt the value of a separate Catholic education system in Ontario, they need look no further than Ministry of Education numbers to see that Catholic schools outperform their public counterparts in producing high school graduates.

The latest statistics compiled by the ministry show Catholic schools consistently graduate a higher percentage of their students than their public counterparts.

Eight of the top 10 spots for graduate rates among English boards are taken by Catholic boards. Only the York and Halton public boards prevent a Catholic sweep of the top 10.

It comes as no surprise to Ab Falconi, director of education at the York Catholic District School Board. The board has topped the ministry’s list each year since 2014. Falconi believes the distinct guidelines set out by Catholic Graduate Expectations — introduced in 1998 — are inextricably linked to Catholic boards’ success. These expectations are shaped by the faith tradition, integrating body, mind and spirit in a student’s education.

“The fact that we have the Catholic Graduate Expectations and we teach towards and we make sure we are nurturing those different aspects of each of our learners makes a difference,” said Falconi.

These expectations foster the feeling of a caring family, he said, and “all of a sudden that child feels that sense of belonging, they feel a little bit of responsibility towards themselves and towards others.”

John Kostoff, executive director of the Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers’ Association, said these expectations are very clear and focused from day one in Grade 9. It’s attractive to parents who make a conscious choice to send their kids to a Catholic high school.

“Parents choose to put their kids in Catholic schools, so there’s an understanding of the expectations upfront. Clearly, this is what a Catholic school is about,” said Kostoff.

The latest statistics show 86.3 per cent of all students graduated from high school within five years, with 79.8 per cent attaining their Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) in four years. The ministry has set an 85-per-cent graduation rate as a target.

But it is Catholic schools leading the way in propping up those numbers. Pretty well every Catholic board across the province — 19 of 27 boards (no numbers were available for two boards) — surpasses the province’s 85-per-cent goal in graduating its students in a five-year period, and two of those boards are so close that it could be considered a rounding error. Only eight Catholic boards fall below the average, most located in northern Ontario.

John Crocco, director of education at the Niagara Catholic board, said Ontario has four excellent, caring public school systems. But how much the Catholic faith means in the results cannot be dismissed.

“We’re blessed and we’re unique in that our Catholic faith is infused in every subject area,” said Crocco, whose board was third behind York Catholic and the Halton Catholic in graduating students within a five-year rate. “That helps permeate what we do because it teaches the students the responsibility (of our faith).”

All the educators recognize that it goes beyond just sharing Gospel values. At York Catholic, Falconi said its SWAC (School Within A College) teachers maintain a personal touch with students with “pretty intensive efforts” to keep kids in school.

“It might be a student who might be somewhat disengaged and all of a sudden there are people out there who are watching out for me and are caring about me and want me to succeed,” said Falconi.

That’s not to say Catholic boards are the be-all and end-all. Kostoff said it could very well be that the next statistics show a reversal and more public boards are at the top in producing graduates.

“Public schools in Ontario are probably one of the leading systems in the world, not just Canada,” he said.

But Catholic schools recognize they “have to be more than just the academic graduation rates.” If that’s it, “then I don’t know that we’re fulfilling the mandate of what Catholic schools were created to be.”

Still, despite the encouraging numbers, the challenge remains in seeing more students graduate.

This Remembrance Day will almost certainly be unforgettable for an 11-year-old Thornhill, Ont., student — in more ways than one.

It started with Sonja Csik, a student at St. Michael Catholic Academy, creating a “Lest We Forget” poster as a part of a school project to honour Canada’s veterans. Her artwork took first prize honours in local, provincial and national art competitions sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion. Then it was entered in the international Never Such Innocence competition where it earned second place from among more than 1,100 entries by students from 47 nations.

And that landed her an invitation to meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace at an awards ceremony this month.

Never Such Innocence, based in London, England, aims to engage children and young people around the globe with the centenary of the First World War, which came to an end on Nov. 11, 1918 with the signing of the armistice.

Sonja is a student in the York Catholic District School Board’s Elementary Regional Arts Program at St. Michael’s. She answered the call in October 2017, inviting students in Grades 4-6 to enter the Legion’s annual art and literacy contest. Her original poster is now on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, where it will remain until June 2019.

Each year in the lead up to Remembrance Day, students across the nation are taught about the sacrifices that so many made, young people for the most part just a few years older than themselves. Sonja has taken these teachings to heart, with her work encompassing the soldier’s coat, helmet and rifle in a field of poppies. She said she wanted to honour those who sacrificed their lives so that we could enjoy the world we live in today.

“Remembrance Day is important to me because Canada is a free country (due to their sacrifice) so we can live freely,” she said. “I just wanted to draw something because it means a lot to me.

“They sacrificed their lives so we can have a good life and live in Canada freely.”

“Branch 375 of the Royal Canadian Legion is proud to be represented by such a talented young woman,” said Terri O’Connor, youth education chairperson for the Richmond Hill, Ont., branch. “Sonja’s poster, ‘Lest We Forget,’ is a beautiful reminder of the importance of fostering remembrance and honouring our Canadian veterans.”

Legion Branch 375 donated $2,000 to Sonja to help defray the costs for Sonja and her mother, Timea, to travel to England. Another $750 was raised among members and the cheques were presented to Sonja at a branch meeting in mid-October.